Negotiators from the European Parliament, the Council of the EU and the European Commission announced, on Tuesday 15 December, a comprehensive agreement on the reform of the European transparency register in which lobbies will have to register to meet with officials from the institutional trio. This compulsory register will in fact be applicable to all three institutions of the European Union including, for the first time, the EU Council (see EUROPE 12617/20).
The European Transparency Register shall be open to the voluntary participation of other Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies and the Permanent Representations of the Member States to the Union.
Interest representatives will be required to declare their interests and the objectives they promote, and specify the clients they represent. All records should include information on resources devoted to advocacy activities (funding sources).
The new transparency register will be managed by a Secretariat in which the three institutions will participate on an equal footing. This Secretariat will be supervised by a Management Board composed of the Secretaries-General of the three institutions.
In practice, the transparency register makes it de facto compulsory for interest representatives to register if they want to participate in activities such as meetings with key decision-makers, or participate in hearings (ditto for access to the institutions’ premises).
Certain activities will remain possible without registration, namely: spontaneous meetings, information at the request of the institutions, legal advice, activities carried out by social partners, political parties, international organisations or public authorities of the Member States. However, associations and networks of these public authorities, which carry out activities representing interests, may register.
“This agreement will strengthen a common culture of transparency in the institutions and beyond”, said Katarina Barley (S&D, Germany). These new rules will help to better combat the “rise of political populism”, while respecting “the specificities of each of the EU institutions”, she added.
Danuta Hübner (EPP, Poland) welcomed the fact that the agreement extends the scope of the register to the EU Council. “This agreement marks a new chapter for transparency in the EU”, she stressed.
Political declaration of the EU Council. The German State Secretary for European Affairs, Michael Roth, castigated the “shameful campaigns that attack the EU”. A code of conduct will also have to be respected by the lobbies, the German EU Council Presidency hammered home.
The EU Council confirmed the adoption of a political declaration by a number of Member States on the application of the principle of cross-compliance to their Permanent Representations when holding the Presidency of the Council of the EU and during the six months preceding it.
The last five Presidencies of the EU Council have already applied the rule of obliging their ambassador and deputy ambassador to the EU to meet only those representatives listed in the European Transparency Register. They have published details of these meetings on the website of the Permanent Representations to the EU.
“EU citizens have the right to know what we do, how we do it and who influences us”, said the Vice-President of the Commission responsible for values and transparency, Věra Jourová. “We are not saying the lobbyists have malicious intent. But influencing legislation can have an impact on every citizen”, she admitted.
The Interinstitutional Agreement will have to be subject to adoption procedures internal to each institution, after which it can be signed and enter into force. For Parliament, this means that it will be referred to the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and then put to the vote in plenary. In the EU Council, it will be submitted to the national ambassadors to the EU (Coreper) for approval before being adopted by the European institution. Within the Commission, the College of European Commissioners will have to formally adopt the agreement and empower Mrs Jourová to sign it on behalf of the Commission.
Link to the final text reforming the European Transparency Register: http://bit.ly/37lYh1X (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)